


Angels

by KnightNight7203



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7552174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightNight7203/pseuds/KnightNight7203
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You did a good thing, baby," she assures him. "This ain't nothing more than a big scheme to make money." In which Medda saves Jack from Snyder, and maybe saves him from other things, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s late, and rain is just beginning to fall from the clouds that have been looming overhead all day. The streets are nearly empty, and thunder crackles ominously in the distance.

The theater is dark and silent – there hasn’t been a show in weeks. Money is tight, and most of the actors have left in favor of jobs with more work and worse conditions but infinitely better pay. She’s only there on the faint, distant hope that a handful of people might show up for a rehearsal the next day. She thought if she neatened up a few of the backdrops, she’d have a better chance of convincing them to stay.

She drags the brush back and forth across the rough wood and already-peeling coat of paint. It’s going to be simple, a solid color, deep blue that is hopefully reminiscent of the sky. Medda Larkin is many things, but a painter is not one of them. She could sure use someone with some art talent. Her back is beginning to ache already and she’s barely covered half a flat with the cheap paint.

Humming to herself, she tries not to think too hard. If she does, she might remember the payments due on the mortgage she isn’t sure she can afford. She might remember the thin, dirty boys who sat behind the stage all day because even if her heat doesn’t work, there’s at least some protection from the chilling fall wind between the thin walls. She might be overcome by her stiff muscles and stinging eyes and sore throat.

“Miss Medda?”

The soft voice behind her makes her jump, splattering little drops of blue paint on her lavender dress. She whirls around, wondering who could have possibly snuck up behind her in her own theater.

Of course. It’s Jack Kelly.

She smiles when she sees him. He’s always been her favorite of all the newsboys – the times she’s seen him carrying papers for the younger boys (or carrying the kids themselves on his back) and giving them the last of the change in his pockets so they can buy a small meal have warmed her heart. But slowly she realizes something is wrong. He’s wearing nothing more than a thin shirt and ragged pants cut off roughly below the knees, despite the downpour and the icy wind. There are drops of blood on his clothes, and he’s walking funny, all stiff and awkward. And he’s honest to God crying, big tears mixing with the raindrops still covering his face.

“Are you okay, honey?” she asks numbly, even though he’s clearly not. “What on earth’s the matter?”

He only shakes his head, lips pressed firmly together in an attempt to keep his sobs silent. His whole body is shaking. She can’t tell if it’s the cold or something worse.

“Sorry to intrude,” he gets out finally, not meeting her eyes. “There was just– I’ve gotta hide. From the cops. Sorry.” He waits, shoulders hunched, clearly expecting her to throw him out. Instead she pulls him to her, enveloping his thin frame in a hug. At first he cringes away, and she worries she’s hurting him, but then he relaxes and it isn’t long before she’s holding him up completely.

She sits him down in one of the seats and lowers herself beside him, and then pulls him closer until he’s practically on her lap. Then she starts rubbing soothing patterns on his back the same way her mama used to to calm her down. She doubts Jack Kelly’s ever had a similar experience in all his sixteen years – she doesn’t think he ever even knew his own mama – but she hopes everyone can recognize a gesture of motherly comfort, regardless of past experience.

“Anybody see you come in here?” she asks. She wants to let him rest, but she needs to know if she should take him somewhere else first.

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so,” he says slowly. “It’s storming pretty bad out there. I didn’t even see where I was until I almost ran into the sign.”

She runs her fingers through his hair gently. He looks at her sideways for a moment, maybe wondering if she’s going to ask what he did or why the cops are after him, but when she doesn’t his eyes flutter closed. She uses her sleeve to dry off his face – the air isn’t that much warmer inside the theater, and she’s worried he’s going to get sick.

“I haven’t seen you around too much lately. Where have you been?”

He chokes out a laugh, bitter and hopeless, and she winces. She’d thought that question was safe, but then, nothing could keep him from his boys for months unless it was something negative. She should have known. “The Refuge, Miss Medda. Again.”

“After all this time?” She’s in shock – he’d been dragged there last December. When he nods, her face darkens. “Well no wonder you look like such a mess,” she explodes, shaking her head. “That’s a wicked place. It needs to be shut down before it does any more damage.”

He shrugs, a distant look in his eyes. She’s not even sure he’s listening.

“You bust out?” she asks. “That why the cops are looking for you?”

Eyeing her nervously, he nods. She smiles, rubbing his back again.

“Good for you, honey. They should’ve let you out months ago. Things will get better now.” He blinks, clearly not expecting that response. But his breathing slowly gets calmer, and she’s glad she could offer him at least that small comfort.

“I broke the law, Medda,” he whispers after a while. “Stealing that stuff.” She can’t tell for sure, but she thinks he still feels guilty, even after all this.

“You did a good thing, baby,” she assures him. “This ain’t nothing more than a big scheme to make money. The cops want money, the folks who own the stores want money, and Lord knows that damn Snyder wants money. But if you don’t have money, you still don’t deserve to die.” She puts her hand under his chin and forces him to look up at her. “You saved those kids when you brought them food and blankets. I’m not sure they would’ve made it through the winter.”

His face flushes a little. “You heard about that?”

She nods. “All the boys were talking about it. They look up to you, Jack.”

His face pales at the mention of the boys. He now has no choice but to ask the question she knows has really been tearing him up. Beaten, bruised, hungry and exhausted though he is, Jack Kelly thinks only of others. She can’t even imagine how he survived locked up away from his friends, not knowing whether they were eating or sleeping on the streets, unsure of whether they lived or died.

“How are the boys, Medda?”

“They’re fine,” she says soothingly. “Just today there were a few in here drying off after work. I’ve heard they’ve been selling lots of papers – the headlines have been pretty good.”

“None of them got themselves locked up after me? I didn’t see anybody, but–“

“They’re all safe, Jack. They didn’t do anything stupid.”

He lets out a huge breath. “Thank God.”

Leaning him gently against the back of the chair, she stands and disappears behind the curtain for a moment, only to return with a thick blanket. She drapes it over him. It smells faintly of mold and is rough and scratchy, but he snuggles deeper into it immediately.

“Don’t worry,” she murmurs after a few more minutes of silence. “Night like tonight, the cops won’t be out long. You’re safe.”

He nods. His eyes are closed again.

She goes back to painting, brushing the blue onto the remaining flats haphazardly. The final result is uneven and streaked, and looks even worse than before, but she can’t bring herself to care. When it’s finished she ends up next to Jack again, studying his thin face. The dark circles under his eyes make him look far older than he actually is, but somehow he looks younger, too. She can still remember him as a young boy, tagging along with the older newsies, learning everything about the city with a bright smile on his face. How was that bright, curious child reduced to this?

She’d thought he was asleep, but he cracks his eyes open to stare back at her.

“I probably messed up your whole night, huh?” he asks apologetically. He squirms out from under the blanket, stuffing it into the seat beside him.

“Of course not,” she assures him. “My night was gonna be long and lonely. I’m always glad to see you, honey.”

Taking a deep breath, he forces himself into a standing position. “Still, I’d better be going. Thanks for–“ he blushes, looking away. He’s clearly ashamed of his meltdown, however justified it is. “Just, thanks.”

She runs a hand through his matted hair one last time. His skin is still cold, and he can barely keep his eyes open. “Just stay here tonight, Jackie. There’ll be plenty of time to see the boys in the morning.”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I couldn’t, Medda. What if somebody– I gotta go somewhere nobody’ll look. Lay low for a couple of days. I don’t want you gettin’ in trouble.”

“Nobody’ll look here, and if they do, they won’t be looking anywhere anytime soon,” she declares threateningly. “Go lay down backstage, baby. You look exhausted.”

“You sure?” When she nods, he sighs in relief. “You sure are an angel, Miss Medda. Thanks.”

She hopes he’ll get at least a little rest before he begins his endless cycle of hard work and no reward again, but she finds him not many hours later back on the stage, her old stiff paintbrush in hand. She stares in awe as he drags colors through her flat, streaked layer of blue, adding misty clouds and the faint outlines of plains and the blurred edges of buildings on the horizon. He’s never told her – anyone, in fact – but he has an amazing talent. And it makes her smile to see him in a place where he feels safe enough to use it.

As his backdrops improve, so do her audiences. Within a month, the seats are almost sold out. The theater has a new air of professionalism, and actors and spectators come from all corners of the city and beyond to escape their daily lives in her stories and his settings.

As she watches him paint day after day, she realizes something. Maybe this boy is something of an angel, too. He’s certainly not of this grimy, oppressive world where everything beautiful is slowly beaten away. He belongs somewhere much better than this.

She hopes he never loses that, even with the cards stacked against him. Because even with his history and his track record, Jack Kelly is the most innocent, beautiful boy she’s ever known. And even if it’s just in New York, he should have a chance to really live. Heaven knows he deserves it.


	2. Chapter 2

When she doesn’t see Jack for a few days after that first night, Medda desperately wants to believe it’s because he’s already better. She’s seen children bounce back from horrible things, after all; getting right back up and taking on the world again where most adults would falter and fade away. There’s a part of her that knows Jack Kelly is no longer a child, not really — he’s been through too much, been beaten down for too long. She wishes that negative part of her would go away. None of them needs the reminder.

There’s one alternative she refuses to let herself consider, though: that he was found by the cops and hauled back to the Refuge. Because after what they’d done to him last time — after the shape he’d been in when he dragged himself to her door — well, she’s fairly certain he won’t be escaping another capture, not on his own two feet anyway. From what she knows about Snyder (which admittedly, isn’t as much as she’s like — she wants to see him torn apart in every paper in the city) he’ll be even more brutal regarding this second escape. There’s a horrible part of her deep within herself that whispers she didn’t do enough for the boy. She tries to force it away. She fails.

But then she catches a glimpse of him on the street, already lugging Romeo’s papers around in addition to his own, sees him at the corner table in the deli holding Specs’s glasses just out of reach, and it’s as if her far-fetched wish has somehow come true. He’s smiling, laughing even. The bruises have all but faded from his skin. Everything is just as it was before.

Except it’s not. And eventually, it becomes impossible to ignore. He sees the theater as a kind of safe haven now — in fact, more and more of the boys do — so she has a front-row seat from which to witness the devolution of Jack Kelly.

For example, he is now plagued by relentless nightmares.

She knew he came to the theater late at night sometimes. She’d never actually caught him at it before, but there were always elaborate paintings left as evidence when she returned in the morning. She never confronted him about it, either — she figured it was another way of coping, a way to dissolve real life among the brushstrokes of his newest masterpiece. That wasn’t a crime, after all. As long as he was handling it, she was happy.

But by chance she happens to see him there one night, and it is so very clear that he is not handling it. She can tell he’s shaking even from the back of the house, and in his struggle to pick up a paintbrush he knocks the entire container to the floor. When she calls his name, he jumps about a foot in the air.

“Medda!” His eyebrows are scrunched in a little scowl that _almost_ masks the exhaustion in his expression. The frustration is plain on his face as she approaches, but she also notes the sheen of sweat and the glassy look in his eyes. His breathing is deep and uneven. She places her hands on her hips and raises her eyebrow at him.

“Do you have a fever?” she murmurs, concerned. “You look sick, honey.”

Instead of smiling gently or waving her concerns away like he usually does, Jack turns away abruptly and kicks a few of the brushes into a messy pile. She frowns.

“Nice to see you too. No, I don’t have a fever.” He says the words through gritted teeth. She notices distantly that he never refutes being ill, though she’s sure by now this affliction is not physical.

“Are you sure?” she asks, stretching a hand out to feel his forehead. She gives him plenty of time to pull away, but is somehow disappointed when he does.

“I’m sure,” he says, and, shaking her head, she withdraws. The poor kid obviously came here in a hurry. He’s only half-dressed, his shirt unbuttoned and untucked and only one side of his suspenders in place.

“Is it dreams?” she demands suddenly, with only minimal effort to keep her voice gentle. It’s three in the morning and he looks awful. She’s not going to waste time on pleasantries.

His flinch is answer enough. He grabs for a brush from the floor, leaving the rest scattered, and attacks the scenery with a fierce intensity. He goes over the same section three times, each layer added more roughly than the last. For once, his art doesn’t look effortless — it’s choppy and smeared. But she knows he’s not angry with her. Something — or someone — in the nightmares has left him hurting and upset all over again. And she has a pretty good idea who it is.

She wearily runs a hand through her hair, studying him in concern. There’s only so much she knows how to do here. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He laughs dully, shaking his head. “I know this is your theater, Medda, but with all due respect … Could you just–“

 _Leave me alone,_ he was going to say. _Stop talking about it._ She pulls him into a tight hug instead. It’s a testament to something — either his exhaustion or his need for support — that he only struggles for a minute.

“’M fine, honest,” he says finally, his voice barely a whisper. She holds him for a minute longer, and when she finally lets him go he staggers back limply against a stack of crates.

“Sure you are, sweetie,” she says, doubt plain in her voice. He grimaces.

“I think it’s worse in the lodging house,” he says finally. “It looks different enough during the day. But at night — the dark, the bunk beds — I just can’t–“

He trails off, but she knows what he means. She doesn’t, however, know what to say to fix this. So she settles herself onto the ground and watches him paint, hoping that the confidence his painting seems to lack tonight comes back. It doesn’t.

Finally, she can’t watch him struggle with the same three inches of canvas anymore. She climbs to her feet and gently pries the brush from his fingers. “You really need to get some rest, even if it’s just a nap here,” she says, unsure of how he’ll take the advice but knowing she has to try. The poor boy’s dead on his feet. “You can finish this later — it can’t be easy when you’re this tired.”

“I know,” he says, voice cracking.

“They can’t hurt you anymore.”

He stands there looking at her defeatedly for several minutes, then turns abruptly and heads backstage without a fight. He looks back over his shoulder at her and smiles weakly. “You can go home Medda. I’ll be fine.”

And go home she does. But not before she hears his restless cries already beginning to echo through the wings. He must have fallen asleep the second he was horizontal.

She wants to wake him, but he so desperately needs the rest. Anyway, she has a feeling that he sent her away for the same reason he came here in the first place — he doesn’t want anyone to hear him.

Like so many other times, he’s gone in the morning — and this time, he doesn’t come back for several more days.

When he returns, she notices another thing: he doesn’t like to be touched anymore.

Sure, he’ll initiate contact with the boys. He drapes himself across Crutchie’s shoulders whenever he gets the chance, manhandles Romeo onto his lap, snatches Race’s cigar right from under his nose, ruffles Sniper’s hair. If anything, he reaches for them more than ever — maybe it helps to assure him that he’s here, with them, instead of locked away in the dark. His boys don’t mind. They missed him, too, after all.

But if they grab his shoulder when he’s not expecting it, his face turns ghostly white and he jerks away with enough force to jar bones. He’s been known to draw blood if grabbed suddenly from behind. He doesn’t mean it — when he realizes, he turns whiter still, stammers out an excuse about overactive reflexes on account of the weather or something equally trivial. But for a moment, from the look in his eyes, she knows it’s not the newsboys he feels touching him.

She’ll never forget the moment at the rally, when he draws back a fist to hit Les before he ever consciously realized who tugged so innocently at his shirt. And she doesn’t think he’ll let it go anytime soon, either. The look on Les’s face mirrors his own — confusion laced with desperate, pained horror. And before he can apologize, before he can scoop Les up and squeeze the memory away in a famous Jack Kelly hug, Davey hustles him away.

Jack stands there, hand outstretched and mouth half open as though he wants to say something, anything, to fix this. He only gets a betrayed glare shot over Davey’s shoulder in return.

Medda’s not sure Davey really understands what the Refuge is like. Some days, she’s not even sure she does.

He doesn’t sleep much, either, even on the nights he doesn’t come to paint after a nightmare. As the marks of the beatings fade, the more signs of sleeplessness set in: a chalky pallor of his skin, dark circles under his eyes, the sharp angle of his cheekbones.

But there’s one person who, for some reason, can grab him without fear of frightening him, who gives him pleasant enough dreams that slowly, miraculously, the dark circles start to disappear.

Medda notices this, though she’s not sure he does himself. But she for one knows he shouldn’t take it for granted. So she sends Specs to take Katherine to the roof. And she prays that somebody up in heaven wants this to work out as badly as she does.

It seems like the angels might be listening after all.


End file.
